A scrapbook of soil
knits the land.
Earthworms patchwork
hidden birthing-chambers,
grit and gist abrades
into the leached sap
of leaf and grass.
Rain storms push up
an upholstery of luster,
mossy threads.
above tufted beds.
Frail daisy heads nod,
yet their roots grip and twist
as fibrous as hemp.
The turning lathe of a tireless wind
crumbles iron cities,
towers and arcades
stand emerald cast,
walls chained to creepers,
and a choking ivy.
Topsoil sinks to be
the undercroft of graveyards.
All is begun, all is lost
in the long gestations
of death and recovery.
Tempering's spun
beneath a settling moonlight.
Categories:
undercroft, poetry,
Form: Free verse
a growler is running
clouds are being mown down
then replanted inside wind-scapes
Popping seeds
crunch together
spill their fill into the air
a word on the lip of imagination
is chopped out of existence
ears ring
with dead bird songs
a silent space of myself
flaps away
i would rather be
a bat orbiting the moon
than here and now
the grass under my feet is cut
a grave undercroft of being
turns over and over
a restless mind has long searched
for my house
but the house is cut down
and landscaped to pieces
i need an enemy to love
or a love to hate
nothing less will do
Categories:
undercroft, poetry,
Form: Free verse
a growling lawn mower is running
a word on the lip of imagination
is chopped out of existence
ears ring with dead bird songs
this silent space of myself
flaps away
i would rather be
a bat orbiting the moon
than here and now
the grass under my feet is cut
a grave undercroft of being
turns over and over
a restless mind has long searched
for my house
but the house is mown down
and the sky landscaped to pieces
i need an enemy to love
or a love to hate
nothing less will do
Categories:
undercroft, poetry,
Form: Free verse
Yes, yes I forgive you.
I reach, eyes closed, for your naked paws;
for are you not faithful? Like a dog you wait
and I bless you now for your patience.
Mother comes out of you, father to,
and my son makes a cradle for me
with his elegant fingers.
Many backward facing faces
lead me to our surrender -
I to the undercroft and unknowable clouds,
and you to these steps I have carved
into my ancestral backbones
where time has climbed its hand-made ladder.
Yes, I see you now,
you are no longer mist or miasma,
but clear of eye as an infant,
for yes, you are a mirror.
Let me not die this night, and if it must be night
let it be your tomorrow night.
Soon I must pass into that looking-glass
where all is birthed, even death
and all that I have known
will be recorded there, and all that I have forgot
will be remembered.
I will not call you: future, present or past,
If I so thought, or did so call
then there would be no womb for me
in the ever ripening cosmos
of that which has yet to be yet.
Categories:
undercroft, poetry,
Form: Free verse